Namibian youths celebrate their country's first hours of independence from South Africa on March 21 1989. Ahtisaari was the UN special representative who oversaw the country’s transition to independence

At the UN headquarters in New York on April 22 2002, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan (l), named Ahtisaari as the head of a fact-finding team charged with investigating events at the Palestinian refugee camp in Jenin